Death to all but Metal

The nightmares just weren’t stopping. No matter how much he tried to justify what he’d done, inside his skull was a voice screaming obscenities. Most nights he’d wake up feeling someone was crushing his chest with size 10 Doc Martens. But there he would be, in bed, his wife next to him. She’d tried her best to comfort Vince. But would she still do so if she knew he was the one? That the man she thought was the sweetest person around, was actually the one who had taken that fateful decision.
On Sunday, Vince woke up early and went for his usual run. Nothing was helping. The fear was still there. That one day he’d have to pay for his sins. All those people whose dreams he’d crushed. Taken their life away, as some of them claimed. Damn, he thought, if only I’d stood up for what I believed. If only. But it was too late, wasn’t it? That day, when the men in the black suits came to his office, and told him there was no choice, he could have said no, could have retained some dignity. But life could be a bitch. There he was, trapped, with a mortgage, a new car that still had to be paid off, and two kids in a rather expensive school. And it was a tough job he’d chosen. Worse than being a cop, perhaps worse than being a trauma surgeon.

No, there was no way out. He’d have to live with this for the rest of his life. Anyway, it was over, what had happened could not be changed. Fuck them. Fuck those assholes. Did they not understand the soul-crushing pressure on a concert promoter? The Backstreet Boys had played in Rock In India. So what? Not Megadeth like the year before, or Aerosmith before that, or Iron Maiden. The fucking Backstreet Boys. So fucking what?